Gray's Inn Creek

Gray's Inn Creek is a tributary to the Chester River, which in turn is the large "arm" of the upper Chesapeake Bay.   We took the Chester River to Chestertown last Autumn, and entered the Chester River to travel through the Kent Narrow's at the start of our trip to St. Michael's last month.

I have had my eye on this one cove in Gray's Inn Creek for a while now, and this weekend seemed to be the perfect time to try it.  The cove, Shippen Cove on the charts, is only 4 miles southeast of Osprey Point, but to get there by boat requires a 21 nautical mile journey around the southern tip of the Eastern Neck Wildlife Refuge.

A little side note... an orchid that I have been nursing for years has finally bloomed.  When I purchased it, the bloom only lasted a day, so I had to spend some time Saturday morning capturing this orchid... just in case it was gone by the time we returned.

We did manage to leave early on Saturday morning, but that meant that Vicky wanted to "rinse off" the boat and I was trapped below at hose-point 

We got underway just after lunch and the first thing I noticed was that there was a large number of boats under sail as we motored down towards the #3 buoy.  They were sailing on both sides of the main channel and in both directions.  It was a beautiful day and I wanted to spend some time sailing, but also wanted to wait until I got away from all the traffic.

Shortly after we made it to the #3 buoy, we set the sails and it was a a wonderful day for sailing - winds in the 10 - 12 kt range with occasional and short gusts to 15 to 17 kts.  Despite this wind, the bay was very flat which is a bit unusual... it all added up to a pleasant hour or so of sailing between the #3 buoy of Swan Creek and the #3 buoy of the Chester River.

The one notable exception was this one sailboat that was right out in the middle of this area.  It had a black flag at the top of the mast, and no sails so I assumed it was under power and wondered why it didn't yield as we approached under sail (rules of the road, etc., etc.).  It was only as we got uncomfortably close and finally yielded and then got around to the sunny side of the boat, that I realized it was ANCHORED!  Additionally I could now see that the black flag at the top was really an RC flag... it was a Race Committee boat and we were in the middle of a sailboat race!  Fortunately, by this point we were moving away from the race.

We lowered the sails as we reached the mouth of the Chester River and motored up to Shippen Cove, where we set the anchor for the night.

Since it is Chinese National Week, Vicky decided to fly her flag from the starboard spreader.

It has become our custom to have dinner at sunset while anchoring out.  I watched the sun set behind the nearby trees, and thought that was it.  But we were treated to an unexpected surprise a few minutes after sunset when the entire western sky lit up with a wonderful afterglow!

What a backdrop to dinner!

We sat out in the cockpit as night fell until the bugs became to come out an hour or so later.

I woke up right before sunrise and noticed that we were heading for a grand sunrise as well.  We had an iPhone photoshoot as the sun slowly crawled out of bed into the sky.

My photo

Vicky thinks her's is better.

Right as we were ready to weigh anchor, Karen, my goddaughter, called from Hong Kong for help with her English homework.  Of course, I had to take the call and delay our departure a bit.

We then weighed anchor, and did a quick tour up Gray's Inn Creek.  I realized there might be better spots to anchor next time.  It was a simple 3 hour trip back around the wildlife refuge back to Osprey Point.

There was zero wind, so we simply motored home.